It is sometimes called the Small Meadow Brown, and the Gate-keeper.
THE RINGLET BUTTERFLY. (Hipparchia Hyperanthus.)
([Plate VI]. fig. 3, Female.)
This is one of those butterflies in which Nature, departing from her accustomed plan, has reserved the chief adornment of the wings for the under surface, leaving the upper comparatively plain and unattractive.
In both sexes the wings, above, are of a deep sepia brown, surrounded by a greyish white fringe, and bearing several black spots in paler rings, which rings are
much less distinct in the male than in the female, the sex figured in the plate.
The under surface is of a soft russet ground, adorned with a wreath of the ringlet-spots from which the insect takes its common name. These are black eye-spots, white-centred and set in a clear ring of pale tawny colour. The most usual form and proportions of these spots are shown in the figure (with closed wings), but there are many varieties met with, the following being the most remarkable that have come under my notice.
One, and not a very uncommon one, has no light rings round the black spots on the under side.
Another has the rings reduced to a range of mere light specks, the black eye-spots being entirely absent.